The True Story of Jesus — Page 68
as 68 high priest. He refers to this band as if they were a home guard sent out to catch a bandit by the local authority of a city. He is brought to the high priest and accused by witnesses before the ‘chief priests and all the council’. The witnesses cannot agree, Jesus tells the high priest that he is the Messiah and that the ‘son of man’ will soon be seen coming in clouds of glory; the high priest exclaims at this blasphemy and the meeting adjudges him fit to die. A second meeting in the morning holds a consultation, doubtless as to how to have him killed, and concludes by handing him over to Pilate. ’1 ‘Luke’s account is subtly different. Jesus is arrested by the Temple police; he is taken to the high priest’s house but there is no night time meeting of any council. Only at a morning meeting does a council ask him questions: first, is he Christ? second, is he the ‘son of God’? The whole company then brings him to Pilate. ’2 ‘In the fourth Gospel events take a very different course… Jesus is never questioned at all before a council of Jews. He is taken first to the house of the high priest’s father-in-law Annas, where he is questioned only about his disciples and his teaching. From there he goes to the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, and from there to Pilate’s residence. ’3 According to the Bible it seems that the trials of Jesus as before Pilate and possibly before Herod had all happened in the course of Friday morning, which is hard to believe. ‘It is difficult to 1. The Unauthorised Version, by Robin Lane Fox, published by the Penguin Group London Viking in 1991. p. 295 2. The Unauthorised Version, by Robin Lane Fox, published by the Penguin Group London Viking in 1991. p. 296 3. The Unauthorised Version, by Robin Lane Fox, published by the Penguin Group London Viking in 1991. p. 298